2019 journal article

Managing load congestion in electric vehicle charging stations under power demand uncertainty

Expert Systems with Applications, 125, 195–220.

Source: ORCID
Added: August 22, 2024

Electric vehicles (EV) have received considerable attention in recent years due to their low operating cost, potential for energy sustainability, and zero tailpipe emissions. This study presents a novel two-stage stochastic programming model integrating long- and short-term decisions to design and manage EV charging stations with renewable energy generation capability. The model captures the non-linear load congestion effect that increases exponentially as the electricity consumed by plugged-in EVs approaches the capacity of the charging station and linearizes it. The study proposes a hybrid decomposition algorithm that utilizes a Sample Average Approximation and an enhanced Progressive Hedging algorithm (PHA) inside a Constraint Generation algorithmic framework to efficiently solve the proposed optimization model. A case study based on Washington, D.C. is presented to visualize and validate the modeling results. Computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in solving the problem in a practical amount of time. Finding of the study include that incorporating the load congestion factor encourages the opening of large-sized charging stations, increases the number of stored batteries, and that higher congestion costs call for a decrease in the opening of new charging stations.